This is really great. I switched off products that use palm oil a while back, but I always feel so isolated when making changes like this. When a giant company does it, that has real impact. Thanks to the people out there that are making this sort of thing happen -- here's to hoping real good comes out of this.

Soap is really tricky. The realistic alternatives at a commercial scale are coconut oil (but coconuts take twice the land to grow, compared to palm kernels) or animal fat (which you may not want in your soap). Sustainably sourced palm oil is probably the best option for soap making.

On a related note, we really should be considering how much soap/detergents we really need. Not just deforestation, they are a major part of water and soil pollution. P&G, Uniliver et al. really sold the idea of using A LOT of soaps to everyone.

My parents, born in India in late 50s, rarely had access to soaps and detergents growing up in the countryside. They are still very conscientious in how much detergent they use. It's a lot of bad habits that mega-corps have tried to push onto us.

For individual people it’s not hard at all to radically reduce palm oil consumption. I don’t think I eat any palm oil on a regular basis except maybe from occasional chocolates or restaurant meals.

Not eating Oreo filling or Nutella is just generally good health advice (if you want chocolate + hazelnut spread, you can buy ones made out of hazelnuts and chocolate instead of mostly sugar and palm oil; plenty of available packaged cookies have little or no vegetable oil). Plenty of available peanut butter has nothing but “peanuts” as an ingredient. Make your own pie crust using flour and butter (or lard). Etc.

Avoiding palm oil in soap/shampoo is harder; best first step is probably to reduce soap consumption. Most people use way more soap than necessary, way more often than necessary.

I'm more inclined to believe that it's the media causing negative PR for the companies. Brand image is everything to big companies so a slew of media attacks around a particular topic will often cause the company to change tactics.

Unless you're a government-entitled monopoly (in the US: ISPs). Then it doesn't matter what anyone says about you (the company), and 'voting with your wallet' means you (the consumer/citizen) go without a crucial utility.

Or you can start your own utility and be the change you want to see in the world. A lifestyle business does not appear to be out of reach for those with some technical skills and a modest budget[0].
[0] https://startyourownisp.com/

I've considered doing this in the past. You need more than a modest budget to maintain such a system, especially if you plan to sell service (and, inherently, support). It seems like it would be a full time job.

(1) as a feedstock for making surfactants in personal cleaners (shampoos, toothpaste, bath gel) like sodium laureth sulfate [1];
(2) as a substitute for partially hydrogenated vegetable oils (incl. trans fats) in food manufacturing; partial hydrogenation of vegetable oils (containing unsaturated fatty acids) will alter their melting point and texture to produce solid-at-room-temp shortening; and
(3) as a cooking oil. Lately, it has also seen some use in biodiesel.

To replace palm oil in surfactants, you can use coconut oil (which is even more intensive to produce), or by synthesizing the precursors from mined hydrocarbons (typically oil or natural gas) using a variety of clever chemical reactions; or lard from animals, which requires raising animals.

To replace palm oil in food manufacturing, you can use coconut oil, lard, or you can partially hydrogenate unsaturated fatty acids derived from many vegetable oils; by doing the latter you're converting some of your product into trans fat.

To replace palm oil in cooking, choose from a variety of other oils and fats.

Unfortunately, almost all of the European and US consumption is for manufacturing, while elsewhere it's used for cooking as well. While European and US suppliers do own palm oil plantations, they also source from other producers. This complicates the market: boycotts against big manufacturers of soap or food will drive the price of palm oil lower, increasing the likelihood that it will be offloaded to a different set of countries as cheap cooking oil.

Do you have any reliable resources on how to do this? I would like to, but I'm always dubious of the resources I find, since they seem to be biased. Not that I don't trust their information, but I just have a hard time verifying it.

I just go by the labels. If the labels aren't reliable, then I'd have problems. I tend to think they are reliable because of people with allergies, but I suppose it depends on where you live and how much you trust your vendors.

I mean there is a chance I've got a product with wrong labeling. I just accept I have to trust other people or the labels to figure out if information is incorrect.

You are certainly correct in that we have to trust the regulators and vendors. I just don't recall seeing a label specifically mentioning palm oil, and I'm dubious about labeling requirements to begin with. Others mention that vendors may get away with including it as "vegetable oil" on a label, and I wouldn't be surprised.

He's not really talking about bottles of vegetable oil used in cooking. He's talking about products that use sneaky labeling to either hide the palm oil or make formulation flexible- e.g. if the nutrition label lists "vegetable oil", they can make the product using whatever vegetable oil is convenient that day.

vegetable oil is generally specified by which type, since some oils (soy, for me) are allergens and could really mess someone up if they randomly eat the wrong kind. it would say something like "vegetable oil (one or more of the following: canola, soy, sunflower oil)"

So are they just cutting ties with suppliers that are actively sawing down rainforests? How about suppliers that have already destroyed huge swathes of it but aren't currently expanding their plantations, surely they don't deserve Mondelez's business if this isn't just a PR stunt?

I’d say the lesser evil of these two is the one that can be switched off faster and doesn’t any extremely long lasting side effects even if it’s less green “right now”. There are various alternatives to nuclear power that are getting better quickly and will get only more popular as fossil fuels get less attractive.

Great to see it indeed - but I don't get why now and not earlier. Deforestation of biggest and oldest rain forests due to this is known at least for last 10 years, probably more (that's when I heard about it the first time, with all the controversy that surrounds EU subsidizing this due to bio fuels).

I've been to Borneo 2 years ago, the views all over Malaysian parts of it (and actual Malaysia mainland too, you see it from plane when landing in Kuala Lumpur very clearly) were extremely depressing to me - rows and rows of palm trees in perfect grid where you expect true chaotic wilderness, and basically no other plants around it, just bare soil. That put a pretty sour taste to otherwise beautiful vacation, not sure if I want to visit that country again

You're seeing results now, but that doesn't mean the actions haven't been going on for a while. When I was at Unilever ~7 years ago, I sat across from one of the environmental lawyers working on their sustainability initiatives. At that point in time, in order to sustainably source palm oil you had to:

1) Define what "sustainable" meant
2) Create, support, or at the very least integrate with whatever body does the certification and monitoring of the sustainability aspect
3) Drill down multiple levels deep and ensure you know the entire chain of custody of your raw supplies at all times. The equivalent of recursively auditing every single dependency of every single dependency in your source code, where every single dependency has the ability to arbitrarily inject net new dependencies without notice.
4) Enough market clout to force suppliers through all of this hassle. Which in the end doesn't net the supplier much additional income, since the increased prices get eaten by the increased compliance and production costs.
5) Enough compliant global suppliers to minimize supply risk.
6) Time delay related to implementation of all of the above, plus contract re-negotiations with suppliers which add in language related to the sustainability obligations.

Unilever disclosed earlier this year the entire list of 300 direct suppliers and 1,400 mills they source palm oil from[1]. They've also shown their suppliers that the requirement has teeth and that non-compliance will result in being dropped[2]. That's only possible after over a decade of effort in rolling out the global resources, infrastructure, processes, and supply chain risk planning necessary to be able to do so at such a massive scale. But now that supply chain transparency for palm oil has been developed at scale by the large CPG[3] companies, the sustainable sourcing barrier is a lot lower for mid-sized manufacturers and we'll hopefully start seeing more of this.

Very sadly this ad has just been banned in the UK. The UK regulator's statement [0] said that the criteria for banning it was that it was "An advertisement which is inserted by or on behalf of a body whose objects are wholly or mainly of a political nature." Greenpeace are the body in question who created the video and have apparently been screening it on their website. Iceland (the retail organisation not the country) would have been showing it on their behalf as their Christmas ad, where I think it could have been very effective in nudging public opinion.

Morality is a central part of politics though. We like to think that the environment can be scientific and apolitical. But that is not the case. Caring about the rainforest or whatever is a political choice. We don't have to do anything. And environmental politics is always about projecting that morality onto other people who may not agree with you. That is why it is necessary to observe the niceties of democratic society. And really the politicisation of these kind of issues ia better than apathy.

Read Clearcast's opinion again. It has nothing to do with the fact that the content was political, but because it contravened a very specific rule about one organisation running a political message on behalf of another.

It’s a brilliant marketing step. They knew it would get banned but would only make them look good compared to the regulator, as a result it got way more media coverage than the ad would have got on it’s own, Iceland is going through a real period of change with its new managing director/CEO and this is a manifestion if that.

There are some really interesting reasons that the BBC have banned records [0], including 'might be offensive to other stutterers', 'might remind listeners of scud missiles', 'broadcasting of an SOS in Morse code', 'too morbid', 'the claim the Second World War began in 1941' and 'nauseating piece of material'

The video was created by Greanpeace (and has been previously published), Iceland have an agreement with them to use it (with logos swapped out) for the purposes of advertising their palm-oil-free-ness. I'm not sure if the poem was written specifically for/by GP or if they are using it under licence.

Western boycotts don't affect the palm oil market much because most of the world's palm oil is consumed by India where it is prized for its cheapness, and where sustainability concerns are dismissed as a western luxury.

Could you cite a source for that? India's use of palm oil is at about 15% from what I can find.[0] It's a big number, but not as big as "most" suggests.

Moreover, the same source lists that about 95% is used as edible oil. In a country with high poverty, to claim "sustainability concerns are dismissed as a western luxury" is just a statement of fact. If you don't know where your next meal is coming from, it is hard to care for orangutans dying in another country. This is not an excuse for apathy, it is just human nature.

I'd be interested in seeing a source for this too. I happen to have a lot of Indian friends, and I'm a big foodie, so we talk about food a lot. Ghee seems to be the main cooking fat that's used (or coconut oil in the south), although just like we in the West were told to switch away from butter "because health reasons", Indians are told ghee is bad. Rapeseed oil ("canola" for the merkin) seems to be the main one, and Mustard oil gets used quite often too.

Ok I was wrong, India is 15%, and EU consumes a surprisingly high percentage at 12%. But still, subtracting the EU and US, 85% of the oil is consumed by developing countries that are too poor to worry about the environmental impacts.

These numbers, in my opinion, are still reductionist and keep you away from a solution. A more telling statistic would be the purpose for which the oil is used in these countries. My guess is usage of palm oil in cosmetic products is much higher in western countries. These products would be so much easier to boycott and regulate than cooking oil.

That being said, it seems like India is working on adding duties to palm oil leading to an increase in domestic price. [0]

Let's say 100 farmers around the world sell palm oil, for $100 a tub. About half wreck the environment, about half are very careful and replant what they harvest.

Western people come in and start to refuse to buy the "environment wrecking" Palm Oil. So they go to the environmental friendly sellers, and start paying $150 for ethical palm oil. On the other hand, people that don't care or places that can get away with it continue to use forest destroying palm oil. There is now a price difference ($100 for normal stuff, $150 for ethical stuff), so most non-western demand shifts to the cheap stuff.

The 50 unethical farmers still make $100 per tub. The 50 ethical farmers now make $150 per tub.

The environment seems no different. The only difference is that $50 got transferred from the banks of wealthy westerners to the ethical palm oil farmers. Which is nice and all, but I am not seeing how it changed anything in the environment.

You would need almost EVERYONE to switch to the ethical route for it to do anything. That would cause surplus supply and price drops of unethical palm oil. Even 50% of users switching seems not nearly enough.

Ah, thanks for the clarification. So the gist of your concern is that pre-existing naturally occurring sustainable production might get windfall profits- but and the demand is not enough to change the remaining production.

This is analogous to the situation in electricity n markets and hydro production btw. Old hydro dams built in the 50s produce power for customers paying extra for "green power" and the money doesn't go to investments in wind/solar.

Europe reducing their palm oil use at least makes an impact, and should be encouraged.

I'm figuring India, China, and Indonesia heavily use palm oil given their geographic proximity to the largest source of palm oil cultivation, which is why it's cheap. More pressure should be put on Malaysia and Indonesia to curb deforestation for the sake of planting oil palms. Further, more pressure should continue to be put on corporate supply chains to decrease their palm oil use. The farmers of these countries are slashing and burning forest land because palm oil is the crop that is in demand. The change has to flow from the top down in order to stop desperate and ignorant suppliers from burning away their own lands and contributing to deforestation and climate change for a few pennies on the dollar.

I make and sell handmade soap with palm oil, among other oils. Unfortunately, palm is a special oil, and palmitic acid is an important part of the oil comp to produce a good bar. The only substitute is lard. While I don't mind using soap made from lard, it has a stigma in the marketplace (i.e. non-vegan, gross).

You can make soap with lot of different oils. But different oils make different soaps. for instance a soap made exclusively with sunflower oil will be very soft and not bubbly, a soap made from coconut oil will be the exact contrary.

Yes, exactly. Handmade soaps are rarely made from a single oil. I use a blend of palm, coconut, avocado, and castor. What oils you use and what percentage each oil represents in the composition, determines the base properties of the soap. I experimented with many compositions to get to my current recipe that I really like.

Hope you’re not offended, but it sounds like you simply don’t care enough about this to make a change. There is a definitely a way to source from sustainable producers and/or change the recipe, but it will come at a cost. This is true in many businesses.

I think the unsustainable part is increasing consumerism. From this thread I gathered that palm oil is more edficient than e.g. coconut oil. So if people drop palm oil and switch to coconut oil, the sustainability problem will get worse.

Not offended. It's true. I don't care enough to make a change. This is partly because I use such a small amount of palm oil--maybe 200lbs annually--so my impact is minimal. Deforestation from palm oil production has been in the back of my mind for years. So far, my customers don't care as far as I can observe. I'm glad to see a big company taking a stand and informing consumers in the process. It's making me think about changing. Removing palm oil is not an option in my mind, but I might pay up for sustainable palm oil.

The cost is higher. I don't use the sustainably produced oil now. When all is said and done, it might increase my unit cost by ~15%--which is manageable really since unit margins are decent. The reason I don't use it is about 1 part Scrooge McDuck and 3 parts skepticism/cynicism. Without a relationship with the actual producers, I don't know what "sustainably produced" actually means.

palm oil is the most efficient oil to extract by practically a factor of 2 [1]. So in the long term, if global supply increases or stays stable, if we replace palm oil crops with another crop, eventually we'll make the problem worse and face more deforestation.

I keep trying to ask people this "What do you think the farmers will do if they can't grow oil palms?".

Cause the answer is obvious. They will not stop trying to make a living and working hard to feed their families. No, instead of growing the oil palm they will grow something else. And now we're at best right back where we started, but more realistically we are worse off, because there is a reason the farmers prefer oil palms. It is obviously because they are the most profitable, because they require the least work/land/capital for the most output. So the second best option they will choose for growing will be something that is even worse for the environment and the orangutans!

I believe that with palm oil the issue is that the entire tree is cut down as the oil is inside the core of the trunk. If people were soley using farmed trees, it wouldn't be so bad, but instead people are clearing animal habitats.

This the kind of political action I can live with. I’d like to see it in other markets, furniture, etc., anywhere natural resource extraction doesn’t include the mitigation of impact and offsetting the effects.
This is Much much better than activists going vigilate and taking the violent aproach.

It's a shame it takes this much damage, and external pressure to occur first, before changes are made to something that should have been in place from the beginning. Just like anything I suppose. Disaster first, then fix. When will humans ever be proactive?

However, I read through and started following the blog of Taneli Roininen (http://www.gonebikefishing.com/) who is bicycling around the world before his major heart operation.

There are plenty of pictures and somehow I could relate to what he wrote, seeing vividly his pedalling, hearing the sounds and feeling the wind in my minds eye.

When his trails went by palm oil plantations, one could really feel the scale and impact, as well as his frustration. It made the whole palm oil industry more concrete in some strange way... they are big and destructive.

Meanwhile, looking at this article with a systems perspective, this is incredibly good news. Large operational entities realizing that they are most performant when accountable to the public is a very, very good sign.

I find it so odd that people complain about a system enforcing efficiency and sustainability.

For example, I would never say in a whiny voice, “that plant only grows because it gets watered!” or “that student only works hard for good grades!” or “that product is only good because the brand wants to make more money!”

My point is: the why is less important to observe than the how. In this case, the WHY is that this company is just looking out for its own interests (it’s obvious, that’s what they do). HOW is it looking out for it’s own interests? By recognizing that it needs to be accountable to the critical, ethical public.

> Half of the Bornean orangutan population has been wiped out in just 16 years, with habitat destruction by the palm oil industry a leading driver. More than three-quarters of Tesso Nilo national park, home to tigers, orangutans and elephants, has been converted into illegal palm oil plantations. Globally, 193 Critically Endangered, Threatened and Vulnerable species are threatened by palm oil production.

> The plantation sector – palm oil and pulp – is the single largest driver of deforestation in Indonesia. Around 24 million hectares of rainforest was destroyed in Indonesia between 1990 and 2015, according to official figures released by the Indonesian government [1].

I like how Europe (and USA to some extent) destroyed their forests and biodiversity long ago, and now are pushing other, poorer societies to preserve biodiversity for the whole world while staying poor.

If you're so concerned about forests why don't you grow some yourself instead of bullying other countres?

Expecting a lot of dislikes from Bay Area which is a huge plot of ecosystems destroyed for profit.

The deforested parts of the world absolutely should work to reforest. But, the rainforest is some of the most important ecosystem on the planet, containing more biodiversity than anywhere else (except maybe coral reefs) and providing globally valuable ecosystem services like carbon sequestration.

Therefore it is extremely high on the priority list. It's also usually more cost effective to avoid destroying something than to restore something.

Is there a potential for this to go wrong? I know deforistation is the problem, but isn't it just as likely that these producers will start producing oils from other sources. Potentially annuals like corn.

The real issue is biodiesel. This is nice, but we should get the oil from wells and not not rainforests. Chopping down rainforests is not the right way to increase Indonesian income or address climate change.

Well, I guess since they have the entire Brussels apparatus imposing low-to-none tariffs on raw materials and prohibitively high ones on products competing with theirs[1], they could easily afford to be generous on minor things.

Just read the quote below and imagine how would a food-processing company from a third-world country ever be able to compete? (no way).

"The tariff on orange imports is far from being the least justifiable of the EU’s many thousands of tariffs. Consider coffee. There are a number of different tariff schedules on coffee imports and the general idea underlying them is that raw materials get zero or very low tariffs, but the processed coffee imports that compete with EU coffee processors currently attract tariffs of up to 11.5 percent."

Brexit Central's assertion about coffee is completely untrue. Most coffee producers pay zero tariffs, and it's a matter of logistical difficulties at a local level that stops coffee producing nations exporting roast coffee. Not the EU.

Here's a long thread, with references so you can fact check it, on this exact topic.